I finally got the used laptop I’ve been dreaming and scheming on, installed Ubuntu linux and was just beginning to figure out how to do the basics of e-mail and Internet looking with it. I was a couple of days into The Plan to run the old desktop with Windows XP that never, ever went tramping around on the Internet. All my Internet traffic would be from the linux laptop. Thus I would be able to take much of the annoying, system-sucking junk off the desktop to better enjoy the Windows office/marketing programs I had spent so many years getting good with.
Just give me a few weeks to figure out this foreign language of Ubuntu/Linux and I’ll start peeling stuff off my Windoze machine a bit at a time.
Somehow my desktop, Windows or Microsoft caught wind of the replacement Internet computer downstairs and thoroughly LOCKED UP!!! (I wouldn’t put Anything past Bill Gates… he was probably watching me).
I can’t get in to my desktop now!
Crumb. Do I hire a Window geek to bring my desktop and all my office software and files back to life or do I buy and install a clean copy of XP and recover it myself? Cost is about the same. Result probably about the same. My time involvement far less with the hired gun. The third choice is to accelerate the Linux replacement plan. It’s the long run goal anyway, the learning curve has to be ascended anyway and it costs nothing out of pocket. Plus, rumor has it, all the software a rational person needs is available on linux.
I think I finally answered my own question.
Coming out the other side of this mess, I can attest that the learning curve is not any greater than that of the Windows world and the aggravation level is next to nothing .. compared to regular with The Monster from Redmond.
I’m a convert.